Can We Be A Family
by DragonInk
Summary: When parents fight, it's not only them that they are affecting. See it here from the eyes of a sixteen year old boy as his parents tear their lives to shreds.


Songfic To Family Portrait by Pink. I don't own that song, nor thelyrics they belong to respective owners and writers. I also, you know... just so there's no confusion to how much I don't own, I don't own any of the Harry Potter books, the characters or the storylines.

Well except for _MY_ storyline.

Enjoy

---

**Can We Be A Family?**

"_**The course of true love never did run smooth"**_

---

I walked out onto the corridor and looked down the stairs. A piece of wood flew into the entrance hall and smashed into the wall opposite.

"I hate you!"

**_Momma please stop crying, I can't stand the sound  
Your pain is painful and its tearing me down  
I hear glasses breaking, as I sit up in my bed  
I told God you didn't mean those nasty things you said  
_**

"What has gotten into you? I don't even know you anymore! I have no idea why I married you in the first place."

"Really, I thought it was because you knocked me up."

"Where the hell did that come from? Ginny, how could you actually think that?"

"Oh come on, my whole family might as well have put a wand to your head. You didn't have to do me any favors, Malfoy. You could have just left me. I knew that I wasn't all that much to you anyway."

"That is it!" The door slammed.

I trepidly walked down the stairs as quietly as I could. It looked like war had ensued. There was broken wood and china and glass everywhere. Mum was islanded in the middle of it all. She was crouched over the only piece of unbroken furniture in the room. Her shoulders were shaking and she was clutching onto something.

I had seen her like this before, a few weeks ago when downstairs had, once again, become a war field.

_This one had been during Christmas. Mum wanted us all to go on holiday for the summer. Dad had said that he wasn't going to spend money on some hotel when we could just stay by a cousin he had there. It was truly trivial. The bickering had started again and it had moved onto 'the children,' and what our interests were. Naturally I knew where it was going and walked upstairs, ignoring all their comments. _

**_You fight about money, bout me and my brother  
And this I come home to, this is my shelter  
It ain't easy growing up in World War III  
Never knowing what love could be, you'll see  
I don't want love to destroy me like it has done my family  
_**

_I listened to it on the top step, I shook my head continually as I heard all the stupidest reasons for a fight I had ever known. There was, 'That thing you did that other day when you thought I wasn't looking,' and 'I can't believe you actually said that in front of the children. Do you have no shame?' I actually laughed when mum said. 'You've haven't got any respect for me either. You don't even hold the door for me anymore.' _

_Bad language and glasses were brought in and I thanked the gods that Sebastian was by Grandma so he didn't have to endure this torture of seeing his parents ruin their lives._

_As I ran upstairs another piece of furniture flew across the room._

**_Can we work it out? Can we be a family?  
I promise I'll be better, Mommy I'll do anything  
Can we work it out? Can we be a family?  
I promise I'll be better, Daddy please don't leave  
_**

I walked up to her on the ground carefully avoiding the shattered glass. "Mum, are you okay?" I mashed a split plate on the floor. Tonight they had brought the fight from the kitchen.

She sniffed heavily and surprised. Wiping her tears she turned with a smile on her face. "What are you doing up?" she said in a light tone. I stared at her with that look on my face that I always had after I found her crying and she would speak as if nothing had happened, even if it looked like a nuclear war had been fought in the living room. It said, 'Do you think I was born yesterday?'

She caught it and sighed, instantly breaking down again. I knew she was glad not to hold it in until she got to her room. "It'll be alright in the morning, just… go to bed."

I didn't. I stayed up with her until she fell asleep on the sofa. I covered her with a blanket and made my way outside. Then the front door opened. Dad walked in with that resolute face he would conjure up before facing her. When he saw me though, it melted away.

"Dimitri? Why are you still awake?" he whispered to me with a frown.

"Mum was crying. It woke me up," I lied. I always lied about these things and they always believed that no one could hear them when they fought. This time, I don't think he believed me though. He looked at me for a while before turning to the living room and its current sate.

He looked behind me to the sofa where her hair spilled over the front and fell to the ground. He walked past me and knelt by her side. I could hear the glass crunching as he trod on it. He looked at her and ran a hand over her face, wiping away her tears. He sighed heavily and held her hand. He felt something in it and opened it to see what it was. When he saw the wedding ring she had thrown at him, he ran a hand through his hair and looked back at her. He slid it back on her finger before kissing her forehead and scooping her up. She responded easily and her hands went around his neck with her eyes still closed. She sleepily buried her head by his neck and her hair fell over his shoulder. I studied them carefully. They almost looked like they were happy. More glass crunched as he walked back toward me.

He looked at me even harder. "It isn't your fault." He turned to the stairs and looked back at me. "Go to bed. You shouldn't be up this late." He gave me a smile and walked up the stairs with her in his arms.

---

I covered my ears with another pillow. The arguing had been going on for over an hour, glassware would start to shatter any minute now. My door creaked open, I shut my eyes as the noise intensified hoping that I could shut it out. I couldn't. I turned over to the light that filtered in from the hallway to see a small figure shaking. I sat up and held out my arms and waited for my brother to get up on the bed and try to fall asleep, this had become a ritual of some sort. He took it harder than anything. I knew they couldn't keep this up for long. Playing happy families like this never helped anything, it just delayed the inevitable.

We had been at a restaurant smiling the usual fake smiles for the public to see. Father refused to drink as he always did and Mum… well she refused to look at him and instead in other directions. I tried to distract them as best I could. It only ended in trouble though. I tried to tell them how school had been this year and that I couldn't wait to go back. I was sorted into Slytherin years ago and Father had always been proud, mum took a little convincing that it was okay but she came around. As I began to speak I reached for my drink and it spilled on the table, chaos ensued. Father swore and Mum reprimanded him for it in front of us. He retorted and they began arguing constantly before realising where we were. They started this feud again when they got home.

**_Daddy please stop yelling, I can't stand the sound  
Make mama stop crying, cos I need you around  
_**

"Why don't you just run off with the fucking slut then? If that's what you want, go ahead. I should have known not to agree to this. You never could keep anything to yourself!"

"I have never loved anyone but you! But I certainly couldn't keep you, could I? You never did understand that half the neighborhood is actually – off – limits!"

"I wouldn't have gone to him if you had been more considerate, you shitting bastard! Get out, Get out of my house, right now!"

Glass hit a wall and shattered to the ground. My brother squeezed me tighter and continued shaking, trying to keep the cries from escaping him. I comforted him as best I could rocking him back and forward but he was only three and anything I said would only be contradicted the second they screamed some more.

"This is my house, I bought it. It's in my name, Weasley."

I froze. My father only used that when he was fuming mad.

There was a long silence before my mother spoke. "Fine," she said. "I'll leave."

And so it had started. For weeks we stayed by 'Bernard, stress on the ar,' as he continued to correct me. He was mum's new boyfriend, or as I call him, 'bastard who's trying to replace my father.' He had a son of his own and seemed to spoil us all more than he should. He also had a tendency to glance in other directions toward other women who weren't my mother. Mum, who I knew had decided to not look at him looking, refused to believe anything I said and continued to see him anyway. We went to theatres and the usual Wizarding theme-parks. It was obvious that he was trying to buy us off. I hated him, everything he was about. He wasn't my father and I made that clear enough times.

---

Every other weekend was spent with my father after he had demanded to see us. We had such a great time when we were with him but he wasn't the same person no matter how much he tried to smile. He took us to the park once for Sebastian's sake. As I sat on the roundabout I caught him looking around like he used to when mum was there, to smile at her and say to her that he was glad he married her because of us. When he turned now there was no one there.

That day he had dropped us off late and mum was there waiting for us with 'Bernard, stress on the bloody ar.' Mum sent us inside with his son and I took them. After getting them in bed I went to sit on the bottom step watching through the open front door.

"I couldn't give a shit, Draco. I don't want you anywhere near me or them until this is over."

I sat on the stairs listening to them go at it again knowing that it would never be over.

"They're my children too, God dammit! You cannot keep them from me, Ginny."

'Bernard, stress on the ar,' stepped forward. "Maybe you should go, you'll wake the neighbors."

"Maybe you should keep yourself out of other people's business." He looked at mum and ran his eyes on her attire. "And out of their wives if you can help it." I smiled to myself, he was my hero.

"Have some respect, for god's sake."

"Why, she hasn't any for herself." I stood up as 'Bernard, stress on the ar,' took a swing at my father. I wanted to rush outside. Merlin I hated that man. My father deftly avoided it and hit him in the nose.

Go dad.

**_My mama she loves you, no matter what she says it's true  
I know that she hurts you, but remember I love you too. _**

_**  
**_

Then he was gone. I watched mum nursing the wimp on the front lawn and I saw some of the lights from the neighbors homes go out. As she stepped inside with him, she saw me smile at his bloody nose. She gave me a stern look and I glared at her before running upstairs.

That night we moved in with Grandma. We all shared the same room. Mum and Astie got the bed, I chose to sleep on the floor because I knew that's what dad would have done. Sometime during the night, Astie had come down to me to sleep. He said sleeping in a parent's bed wasn't the same without both of them there. After that he had fallen asleep quickly. He was smart for a child of three.

She had cried that night but she wasn't awake. I thought of waking her, before she turned over and stretched out her arm. It ran over the covers a few times before she started to stir. I lay back down thinking she would wake up anytime looking for Astie but she didn't. Instead she said, "Draco?" It was sad and lonely. I heard her sniff but she didn't get up, she was still asleep. That night I slept in peace.

---

_**I ran away today, ran from the noise, ran away  
Don't want to go back to that place, but don't have no choice, no way  
It ain't easy growing up in World War III  
Never knowing what love could be, well I've seen  
I don't want love to destroy me like it did my family**_

The next morning, despite us being free from Bernard, she went back to visit him. I couldn't stand being there and I made that clear too. Sebastian had taken heed of my behaviour and started hating him too, asking for dad whenever they asked him what he wanted. I love that boy.

Mum however didn't like that kind of behaviour and reprimanded me whenever he answered. I didn't care and I told her so. I was sixteen years old and my mother was going to divorce my father and break up a perfectly good family to settle with a no good wife stealer who's only interest in this instant was buy me off.

We argued there and then in front of my brother, in front of him and in front of the rest of the muggle community.

Heads turned in our direction but I didn't care. I just had to talk some sense into my mum, she was pushing away the only person who had ever made her happy in my opinion. I started on her tendency to always change the subject when it came to anything home related or any memory or photo that would turn up out of nowhere.

As the subject of my father came up, Bernard stuck his bruised oar in.

"You should show some respect for your mother," Bernard said to me. I turned to him and fixed my face into a sneer that my father would have been proud of.

"And you should learn to keep your nose out of other people's business, Bernard," I said mimicking my father the previous night. He certainly noted my arrogant tone as I had placed it and knew that I had seen him get beat up by my dad and thoroughly enjoyed it. I didn't stress the ar, so it sounded more like Bernerd. I loved to annoy him. I mainly just wanted to find out what he would do. He didn't speak, didn't correct me this time.

Instead it was mum who corrected me and at that moment… I didn't even want to know her.

So, I ran off. He had taken us into a muggle neighborhood so I knew she couldn't come after me with magic and neither could he. I just had to get away from them all.

_**Can we work it out? Can we be a family?  
I promise I'll be better, Mommy I'll do anything  
Can we work it out? Can we be a family?  
I promise I'll be better, Daddy please don't leave  
**_

I looked around not knowing where I was, I didn't know anywhere here. I just kept on going. I looked for a place with lots of people and found a park filled with children. Someone was having a birthday party. I sat on the roundabout and looked at them every so often when I would turn in their direction. The rest of the time was spent thinking about how much my life was torn to shreds. My parents hated each other when they were in each other's company. My little brother was probably being brainwashed by 'Bernard, with a fucking ar' right now and my mother had already crossed over.

I hadn't noticed how the park had emptied whilst I sat there. I did however notice the hand on my shoulder. I turned to see my father looking at me.

"Mum sent you then. Here to talk me into going home with her?"

"I'm here because you are in a park, in the dark, in a muggle neighborhood. Have you any idea what kind of people lurk out here at this time? Muggles are weird, I told you that already." He waited for me to stop smiling. "Are you okay?"

"How did you know where to find me?" I asked him.

"A place full of people, somewhere to sit so you're comfortable," he listed off. I began to feel like nothing I did out of habit was private anymore. This man knew me more than I did. "And a place where you can feel at home." I knew he meant the fact we were in a park. "You're my son. I taught you well. I also know you," he said nudging me with his elbow. "You'd be harder to find in a crowd. I knew that if you wanted to be found, they would have found you already."

I didn't speak, mainly because I couldn't. A lump had formed in my throat and I couldn't get around it. We sat in silence before I gained control of my own voice. "You're going to leave us, aren't you? You're going to leave us with 'Bernard, stress on the ar.'" I sighed.

"Bernard what?" he laughed. I knew this would make him laugh, I knew everything about him.

"You can't leave us, dad. Sebastian needs you." I lowered my head. "I need you. If you go, I'm going to have to endure being corrected by Bernard for the rest of my life. That is not how I envisioned my life, dad."

"Why don't you just call him by his actual name then, it'll be much easier." He saw me raise my head to retort and hushed me with an understanding expression. "Ah, but where's the fun in that, right?" I nodded smiling. "I don't want to leave you. Honestly I don't even want to leave her." He ran his hand through his hair and rubbed behind his neck. "But if she's found someone else that won't make her cry almost every night, I'm not going to stop her."

I sniffed. "I don't want you to go," I said throwing myself at him. "Please, don't leave me," I whispered into his shoulder. We sat there, rocking backwards and forwards until I eventually calmed down and was on the brink of falling asleep. He apparated with me back to mum.

_**---**_

_**In our family portrait, we look pretty happy  
Lets play pretend, let's act like it comes naturally  
**_

They called my name and I walked into the large courtroom in the ministry. I had been playing outside with Sebastian after they had let him come back. He told me what they asked him and I felt utterly shattered. As I looked around I saw 'Bernard, stress on the ar' sitting with an overlarge plaster on his nose looking utterly incensed. I rolled my eyes at him. No punch left a mark like that after three weeks. How much did he want my father to fail?

I sat in the chair on the stand and looked around. Mum sat next to her lawyer and in front of her were various objects including a frame where the glass had broken. In the frame was our Family portrait. We were all smiling and waving happily, I remember those days. When the only thing I heard at night was the wind blowing at my window. I missed those days. On dad's table were bits of parchments and scrolls. It looked like a trial instead of a custody hearing. After answering fairly obvious questions like, "How do you feel about your father," and, "Do you know the difference between right and wrong," with, "I love him, he's my father," and "I'm seventeen, of course I know the difference. What do you think I am, stupid?" This answer granting a smile from my father, they settled into the more serious questions.

"Have you ever known your father to be violent?" I looked at the frame on the desk. The broken glass must have been there to prove that my father was somehow violent. I instinctively looked at 'Bernaaard,' and answered my own question. He wanted him to fail oh so badly. I hated him even more, if that was possible.

"If you had a choice, would you rather live with your father or with your mother?"

I looked at both of them sitting there just waiting for me to say their names. I couldn't believe they could ask me that after so many years of seeing them together happily. I didn't know a home without both of them in it, arguing or not. I remembered all the outings we took during the summer, how they would go out on the lake by themselves for some "quiet time," I smiled at the thought that they actually believed they were being discreet. It was how Sebastian had come into the world. I remembered all the times they would see me off at the station with Sebastian and how mum would cry and dad would hold her and try and get her to stop, telling her that I was coming home for Christmas.

Then I remembered all the times they had argued, all the broken glasses and the angry words that were thrown. How mum would stay in her room at night and just cry all the time. Even now that she was with 'the wonderful Bernard, stress on the ar,' and sported that ridiculous excuse for an engagement ring, she still cried at night when she thought no one could hear. How father didn't sleep because he was so used to having her with him, how he didn't smile anymore and how he was losing his business because he didn't pay attention to anything he did at work.

Then something occurred to me, all the times I would be angry at Sebastian for something so trivial like a book missing from my room or him just being there in general, it would be, "Just talk to him instead of throwing a tantrum. You make more sense when your voice isn't raised."

I had once asked each of them on separate occasions why they were angry at each other. They had both answered the same thing. "Ask your father," and "Ask your mother."

It was obvious that neither of them knew what had started it in the first place, and the second they did forget they replaced it with even stupider reasons that made no sense whatsoever.

I was suddenly appalled at both of my parents, for their double standards and for their utter stupidity of not seeing what was in front of them.

"Neither," I said.

_**I don't want to have to split the holidays  
I don't want two addresses  
I don't want a step-brother anyways  
And I don't want my mom to have to change her last name**_

"I beg your pardon?"

"I see them both here and I see them fighting for us. I see them doing something that they promised us they never would. But promises don't mean much in our house anymore, if we even have one to live in. Sometimes I wonder why they even married in the first place if they hate each other so much. That they would procreate and use us to torture each other is beyond me. Rubbing all of their past mistakes in each others faces. I hate this and I hate the fact that my parents don't want to love me or my brother anymore."

My father sat forward on his chair. "Is that what you think?"

I ignored his presence but answered anyway. "It's what I know."

"We still love you, Dimitri," my mother slipped in.

I looked at her. "Do you? I don't think so." I turned in my chair to my father. "Did you know that mum cries every night in her bed because you're not there? That she turns in her sleep and stirs when she doesn't feel anyone on your side of the bed?" Bernard shifted uncomfortably. "She hates it when you aren't there to say 'good morning,' when she wakes up. That's the reason she's always late to work, because she knows if she does wake up, you won't be there."

I then turned to my mother. "Did you know that dad waits every night until three in the morning waiting for you to come back? He's always so tired and his business is failing because he doesn't think about anything else but you. He yelled at a woman the other day and called her Ginny after he asked her why she always had to do things the hard way." There was silence in the room. "Me and my brother are both a part of each of you. If you don't want to love each other, how can you love us at all?"

"Now mum is with some other man with a son and I can't stand either of them. I have a three year old brother outside, I don't want another one." I began to raise my voice. "He wants to be my father," I said pointing to Bernard, "and I won't let him so he's spoiling me rotten. She wants him to be you," I said looking at my dad, "and I won't let her but he tries anyway, which just makes me hate him more." I became frustrated. "If you want a man like dad, he's right there mum," I said pointing to my father. "He's sitting right there. I see you both fighting for me and Sebastian and for 'what is in our best interests.' What if our only 'interests' are for you to stop fighting? Where was this spirit when glasses and various household items were flying around the room?" I pointed to the frame on mum's table. "Where were your pleading words when dad stormed out of the house." I saw dad smile and turned on him too. "Where were yours when mum said "Fine, I'll leave."" He looked at me and I knew he had confirmed that we could hear them. "When she would say your name when she was sleeping and tears would fall from her eyes?"

My words began to choke but I continued around the lump in my throat. I had to say this. " Sebastian would come to me for comfort because neither of you could see how much he was hurting." I could see my mother crying. "I hate both of you for making our home a plane for war. You once said that we were a gift from the gods for doing something good in a past life. Now we're a prize from the Wizengamot for who is still standing after beating each other down until you can't stand it anymore and give up." I paused collecting myself and simmered down.

I looked to the judge. "I don't want to spend my summer holidays in two different homes separated from my brother. I remember how happy they used to be together and now I see how miserable they are when they aren't. Neither of them are the same when they are apart so I would rather not live with either of them than just with one," I finished. I wiped the tears that had managed to escape.

My mother's lawyer sat down next to her. "No further questions." He handed her a tissue and she took it wiping her face. I looked over to my father, he hadn't stopped looking at her. I couldn't read what was in his eyes.

"Thank you, you may go now." I nodded and stood up to walk off wiping my eyes. I glared at both of my parents as I left. Every other person in the room was looking at me with admiration. I wondered why because I had probably just sentenced myself and my brother to a few years in an orphanage or a hostel of some sort. The doors opened for me and I walked back outside to join my brother.

---

_**Daddy don't leave  
Daddy don't leave  
Daddy don't leave**_

We both sat there for what seemed like forever. Sebastian kept looking at me and soon it had become an irritation.

"Stop it," I snapped at him and instantly regretted it because he began to lean away from me, I didn't like it after so many weeks of him leaning toward me for everything. "Astie, I'm sorry. Come here." He came back to me and hugged me tightly like he had a few weeks ago. I couldn't believe it had come to this. I looked down at him, his brown eyes stared up at me and I was reminded of mum. A tear ran down his face and I wiped it away.

"Daddy's leaving, isn't he?" he asked me.

"I don't know. We'll have to wait and see."

_**Turn around please  
Remember that the night you left you took my shining star?  
Daddy don't leave, daddy don't leave  
Daddy don't leave, don't leave us here alone**_

"I don't want him to go, I want to go home." I thought back to home and the fact I hadn't seen it in weeks. I wondered if it was still in ruin or if it had been reupholstered for the umpteenth time. My face went solemn remembering the last time I had seen it. Mum had left and dad had watched us leave through the fireplace to 'Bernard, stress on the ar.' I hadn't even heard of this man until I crossed over with Sebastian sleeping in my arms. He just stood and watched us. Mum had walked past me to Bernard but I just stood there with Sebastian in my arms and daring my father to come after us and tell mum she was being stupid. He just turned away, I couldn't believe it. I had waited for the grate to start up again but it never did. He had just given up. My hero was gone.

It wasn't until recently that I understood why he had let her go.

And it wasn't until now that I realised how selfish I was being. We wanted happiness, but mum wanted happiness too.

It wasn't until then that I heard applause coming from somewhere. Doors opened and people walked by all smiling at me and my brother who was now asleep holding me. I had no idea what was going on and I hated it.

_**Mom will be nicer  
I'll be so much better, I'll tell my brother  
Oh, I won't spill the milk at dinner **_

I saw my mother exit. Somehow, I had to apologize before anything else happened. I had to say sorry for everything, for keeping her from being happy and keeping her from having a life. I had to say sorry for destroying dinners with 'Bernard with an – Bernard, for talking back to him and disrupting perfectly good evenings out and for bringing Astie in on my plans of sabotage.

Mainly just to say sorry for being me and ruining everything for her.

But before I could say anything she had me in a bone crushing hug with Astie in the middle of it. He woke up and abruptly looked behind him to see who was suffocating him.

"Mum!" he called and spun around for her to hug him separately.

"Erm, mum. I wanted to say-."

"Don't worry about it. I'm just relieved you said it." As she said this, Bernard walked past and smiled at us before leaving. I turned to watch him go out the door, utterly confused. What just happened?

When I turned back, dad had left the courtroom and was searching the halls. Behind him was another man that I didn't know. When Astie saw him, he called his name and wriggled out of mum to run to him instead. She let him go and we both watched him get scooped up and twirled around screaming with glee.

Mum turned back to me and smiled. I was becoming increasingly confused and made sure it showed on my face how annoyed I was at this new turn of events and the fact I knew nothing about them. She hugged me again.

"I love you," she whispered in my ear. I returned it and said it back, I still didn't know what was happening.

_**I'll be so much better, I'll do everything right  
I'll be your little boy forever  
I'll go to sleep at night**_

Dad approached us with Sebastian in his arms smiling as much as mum was. What had gotten into them? I pushed that aside and straightened my face. "Dad, I need to talk to you." He furrowed his eyebrows and looked at me in concern. Putting Astie down, he walked me a little way off and waited for me to speak.

"Erm, I just wanted to say sorry."

His look increased. "What for, son?" he asked me.

I noted his tone and it put me off a little I can say that. "For acting the way I did. It was childish and I'm sorry for it. I caused nothing but worry and I didn't mean it to."

"Yes you did." I looked at him and matched his expression. "You don't do anything unless you mean to, Dimitri. You may not know that but you do. You're more like me than you know. I saw the way you looked at me when you mother took you and I know you're apologizing to me because you only now understand why I did it. Well, I'm glad you get it, but you don't have to say sorry for it. It wasn't your fault." He led me back to mum and Sebastian. She had been watching us both and talking to the man at the same time. I still didn't know who he was but I had a feeling I was going to find out soon.

"How is three-thirty, I have an opening next week."

"How's that?" she asked dad.

"It's fine," he said. He picked up Sebastian and ignored my perplexed look. They all, meaning both my parents, turned toward the doors to walk outside. I watched the man walk back past the courtroom and turn around a far corner.

"Dimitri!" mum called and I turned to her. "Are you coming or not?" she said.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

She looked at dad, he just smiled. "Home," he said. I thought I heard it wrong and did a double take. Mum came back inside and grabbed my hand pulling me out. She looked at dad as he held open the door for her smiling knowingly as he did so.

As we walked down the steps, I took a while to get used to this new development. My parents were holding hands. I smiled and continued walking behind them, ignoring the faces that Astie was pulling to me and still being irked by a question I had forgotten to ask.

"So who was that man back there?" Dad turned back to me and looked at my mother.

"Our marriage counselor."

---

A/N: I hope you liked it. I got some criticism from the other place I submitted this to from readers who didn't think it was realistic enough. Some was pretty harsh. So, before any who think this go ahead and review _anyway, _I would like to share something with you. I originally wrote this exactly as it happened for a friend of mine who refused to talk about anything that happened. He will remain nameless because... well he deserves at least _some_ privacy, and when I gave it to him to read he said he didn't want the ending the same way.

Now he, like some other reviewers, knows that situations like this don't always end up with a happy ending and that in some of those situations the unhappy ending is a great deal better. I know this, I've seen it happen. This was merely done out of trying to help him.

Thank you.

You can go ahead and review now.


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